Massachusetts

A steady stream of ten boys, each jumping from the classroom windows of the Rainsford Island House of Reformation, sprinted for the shore under the cover of the night fog on August 19, 1899. They found their way through the brush by the light of the fire that raged through their prison behind them. As…Read more Jailbreak at Rainsford Island – Boston Harbor: August 1899

Many in Lowell recall the vast granite and brick buildings at Thorndike's intersection with Highland as the Keith Academy building. Before Keith Academy, though, the buildings housed the Lowell Jail. The Lowell Jail was the city's second, replacing the first which had been located at the corner of Dutton and Cushing streets, and dated from…Read more All in the Same Building: A Jail, Catholic School and later Condos

Familiar sites greet you as you step from the twenty-minute electric car ride on the Lowell & Suburban into the Billerica Center of 1896. Like today, Town Common dominates the view, its Soldiers’ Monument and flagpole just now disappearing behind the late spring foliage. The Unitarian church and Town Hall (now the Library) bookend today’s…Read more A (true) story about Victorian Billerica Center, a church and its scandal

Rogers Street,today, is one of Lowell's main gateways into the city, providing access from Tewksbury, the city's southern neighbor. Known by many outside Lowell simply as Route 38, the road has a long past that is deeply connected to Lowell's history, and to the history of its Belvidere neighborhood especially. Rogers Street gets its name…Read more The Story of Lowell’s Rogers Hall

In May 1904, ten yards beyond a barbed wire fence in the East Billerica woods, James Marnell stumbled over a small mound of dirt, uncovering an ornate silver serving tray. “Sanborn’s treasure!” Marnell, a railroad worker, excitedly deduced. Townspeople knew Sanborn’s treasure to contain silverware, jewelry, and furs stolen the year before from Billerica’s plush…Read more Billerica, 1904: The Peddler’s Sons and Their Buried Treasure

The gates are familiar to all who pass Lowell's Shedd Park at the intersection of Rogers Street (Route 38) and Knapp Avenue in the city's Belvidere section. And they tell a story of some of the greatest generosity ever experienced by the city of Lowell. Today, Lowell's Shedd Park is home to fifty acres of…Read more The Story of Lowell’s Shedd Park